A Dirty Shame (20 page)

“Just wired that way I guess,” Jack said.

Carver grunted and said, “I walked over to give myself a chance to wake up. You get to drive me back though. Speaking of, you don’t look so hot yourself.”

“We had an—enlightening night,” Jack said.

“I don’t want to hear about your sex life since mine is non-existent. I can’t even remember sex it’s been so long.”

“Maybe you should try a little romance,” Jack suggested.

“Maybe you’d like a knuckle sandwich.” Carver rolled his eyes and looked at me. “Spoken like a man without children. I don’t even remember the last time a kid wasn’t laying between us in bed.”

“Maybe you should get a bigger bed,” I said.

“Nah, then my wife would probably want to have more kids, and I’d end up like the little old lady who lived in the shoe. I figure they’ll eventually grow up and go to college. I’ve only got seventeen years and four months to wait before the last one is out of the house.”

“There you go,” Jack said. “Always look at the positive. Now if you can focus on murder for a few minutes, I’ll catch you up to speed.”

“I don’t suppose we could do it over breakfast,” Carver said. “My wife has me on a diet too. Also, we’re going to need a place to spread out. I’ve got a lot of information to sift through, and you guys drew the lucky straws to help out.”

I backed up a step. “I’ve got—um—dead people waiting for me back at the funeral parlor.”

Jack grabbed my arm before I could escape. “I’m sure they’re in no hurry to go into the ground. I know I wouldn’t be.”

I sighed and followed them both back to the cruiser. “Shotgun,” I called out. There was no way I was sitting in the back of a police car. The image of that would’ve pleased way too many people.

We dropped Carver off at the B&B since Wanda—the owner—served a full breakfast included in the price of the stay. We decided to meet back at Jack’s in an hour since we still needed to speak to Booth Wilkins about Ronnie Campbell’s employment at the car dealership, and Carver needed to gather his computer and files.

“Booth Wilkins has an interesting record,” Jack said as we made our way back to Richmond.

“Oh yeah?”

“Couple of felony assault charges. One on a police officer sixteen years ago. He also has domestic abuse citations on record around the same time. Alcohol abuse was attributed to both and he was required to seek counseling. He’s kept his nose clean since he started working for Greg Vance.”

“Sounds like Vance was taking a chance hiring him with that kind of history.”

"Some people can change. Others can’t.” Jack pulled into the car dealership and drove around the back where the auto shop was. It was a huge area with ten bays and a large parking area for those cars still waiting a turn.

Activity stopped as we parked and got out of the cruiser, and dozens of eyes turned in our direction before everyone went back to what they were doing. A lone man walked towards us and we met him halfway.

“Mr. Vance said you’d probably be stopping by. I’m Booth Wilkins,” he said. His voice was soft, and I looked into the face of a man who’d had a hard life, and every line showed on his face. His brown eyes reminded me of a basset hound and he was about my height, going soft around the middle. He wore blue coveralls and a grease rag stuck out of his pocket.

“We won’t keep you long,” Jack said. “You look busy.”

“It stays that way,” he said. “Let’s go into the office so my men don’t hurt themselves trying to eavesdrop.”

We followed him into an office reminiscent of the one I’d waited in at George’s shop, only this one was twice the size. We all took seats in the plastic chairs, and Jack pulled his around so we formed a little circle.

“What can you tell me about Ronnie Campbell?” Jack asked.

“I looked up his file this morning after I talked to Mr. Vance. It’s been ten years, so I needed to refresh my memory. Campbell only worked here about a year. He was an average mechanic, but he got here on time and was willing to work overtime and weekends. I ended up having to fire him because of drugs. I recognize the signs of someone who’s on something.”

“How’d he take it?”

Booth laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Pissed. You could really see that he was on something then. His eyes got crazy and he was sweating like crazy. I told him to get help and come back when he was clean. Mr. Vance gave me a second chance after my problems,” Booth looked at Jack. “I assume you checked me out?”

“I did, but your past isn’t my concern. Not if you’re toeing the line now.”

“That’s how Mr. Vance felt too. So I figured I owed it to Campbell to try and do the same for him. But he never came back.”

“He ever try dealing out of the garage?” Jack asked.

“No,” Booth said adamantly. “And I would’ve known if he was. I pay attention to what goes on around here. This is my territory, and nothing gets past me.”

***

Jack pulled into his driveway, and I saw Carver’s shiny black Tahoe parked next to my Suburban. Carver was asleep in the front seat of the SUV, his head resting on the back of the seat. Jack hit the window with his fist and Carver jumped about a foot in the air, banging his head on the ceiling. I winced in sympathy and then got out of the way. I was used to the childish antics of men, and I knew it never paid to be caught in the middle.

“I was just resting my eyes,” Carver said as he got out of the car. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”

“You’ve got a little drool on your chin,” Jack said.

“I can get this kind of grief at home,” Carver said, his pout reminding me of a toddler. “How’d the interview with your mechanic go?”

“Informative,” Jack said.

We went into Jack’s office, and I hardly blushed at all at the thought of what we’d done on the rug only a few hours before. Carver didn’t seem to notice my distress, and went directly to the white boards. Jack filled him in about the size of the perp who’d given Oglesby the drug and the lab results of the bandana.

“You can’t tell me Wormy wouldn’t know what was going on in George’s shop,” Jack said. “He was George’s right hand, and he was there six days a week.”

“Maybe he’s just a loyal employee,” Carver said, playing devil’s advocate.

“Maybe, but George wasn’t really the type of man to inspire loyalty,” Jack said. “I’ve got Martinez and Lewis sticking to William Vance. They reported in earlier that he spent the night at the hospital on call, but they had no way of knowing if he stayed there the whole time. His car was in the lot, but there are a lot of ways in and out of the hospital, and he could’ve taken any number of means of transportation.”

“So you’ve got an initial suspect that administered the drug to Daniel Oglesby who matches Wormy Mueller’s physical description,” Carver said. “We can also tie him to the bandana and the crime scene, though his attorney will shred that to pieces. We can’t however, tie Wormy to the Aryan Nation. Not without seeing the membership roster.”

“I looked for a tattoo while we spoke with him this morning, but I didn’t see anything visible,” Jack said. “Not that that means anything. It could’ve been anywhere. We’ve also got the connection between Greg Vance and Ronnie Campbell.”

“What about the rest of the employees at Murphy’s Auto?” Carver asked. “Have you finished backgrounds there?”

“Yeah. Most of them have been working there for years. George pays pretty well, and they’re able to do side work if they want. None of them have inconsistencies in their bank accounts, though a few of the men have blips on their records. They’re worth taking a closer look at, but like Lewis said, I don’t have the manpower for the number of hours involved. It’s going to take time.”

“I can farm it out to some of my guys if you’d like,” Carver offered. “I can do that since I’m in charge.”

“I’ll take you up on it, but I still need to go through them all myself. Something might click.”

Carver sighed. “I’d do the same thing.” He passed out thick folders to me and Jack. “This is everything I could find on the Vances. Relatives, lovers, ex-wives, girlfriends, family friends—you name it. You’ll know the size of their underwear and their last prostate exam by the time we’re finished. Let’s see what we see.”

I was an hour into reading through the file of Cynthia Vance, ex-wife to William, and my eyes were starting to glaze over with the tedium. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to make her any more interesting. Charities and being a cardiologist’s wife. That’s what Cynthia Vance had excelled in. She’d come from a wealthy Virginian family—at least on her mother’s side—and she’d married William when she was twenty before giving birth to two offspring.

I skimmed across the pages, wondering how Jack stood the process of police work. It was mostly boring. At least with a body I had the chance of discovering the occasional abnormality. I looked up at him, and I could tell he was in the zone—just as alert as he’d been when we’d started.

“You need more coffee,” he said without looking up.

“I need a lobotomy.”

He grunted and went back to his file. I rolled my eyes and went back to mine as well, and I almost missed the name. It was at the bottom of the page, and I’d already flipped it over to go to the next when my brain caught up to what my eyes had seen.

“Whoa,” I said, turning back. “There’s an interesting connection.”

“What’s that?” Jack and Carver both asked, leaning over so they could read for themselves.

“Guess who is a poor relation of Cynthia Vance?” I asked. “First cousin on her father’s side.”

“Lorna Dewberry,” Jack said. “Little pieces of the puzzle.”

“Could be just a coincidence,” I said. “But it’d be an awfully big one. Where does she live?”

“Her address is listed just across from the church. The old Pickering house if I remember right,” Jack said. “Let’s double check though.”

I listened as he made a call and asked Reverend Thomas if Lorna still lived in the house listed in her file. Jack hung up and smiled.

“The Reverend said she does still own the old Pickering house, but she’s been renting it out to a young couple. Lorna moved back to her parents’ place when her mother died last year.”

“Her parents’ place?” I tried to place where it was in my head. “She grew up almost outside the county line, didn’t she? Out past your parents’ tobacco fields?” I asked Jack.

“Yeah, her father’s fields connected to mine. Though the Dewberry’s haven’t worked the land in almost twenty years. It’s not a working farm anymore. Just a house—and a big barn.”

My eyes widened, but Carver was already on the ball. “I’m looking, I’m looking,” Carver said, typing furiously on his keyboard. “Only car registered to her is a six-year-old Focus. No white Cadillac.”

“Go deeper,” Jack said.

“Patience, young Skywalker.”

“It makes sense,” I told Jack while Carver whistled under his breath. “She’s the right size, and it would be more plausible for her to go visit Reverend Oglesby than it would for Wormy.”

“Where’d she get the drug to inject him though?” Jack asked.

I chewed at my bottom lip and held up a finger. “She’d have to be in it with William Vance. They used to be related through marriage, so they knew each other, and William has access to Augusta General and the drug.”

“You think they have a thing going on between them?”

“Romantically?” I asked, not able to imagine Lorna being passionate about anything but the church. “I don’t know, but anything is possible I guess.”

“Let’s say she has the opportunity,” Jack said. “We still don’t have means or motive. Where did the money come from that was given to Doc Randall? Why would she help her cousin’s ex-husband, who left her for another woman?”

I blew out a breath. It didn’t make sense.

“Well that’s something, anyway,” Carver said. “I think we found a possible match on the car. A white Cadillac was registered to an Opal Fife. Hell of a name.”

“Lorna’s grandmother,” Jack and I said simultaneously.

“She died more than ten years back,” Jack continued.

“Makes sense. The car hasn’t been registered since then.”

Jack and I looked at each other, and I could tell we’d come to the same conclusion at the same time.

“Jesse Fife was Lorna’s maternal grandfather,” Jack said.

“Why is that name familiar?” Carver asked.

“Because he’s standing in that photograph that George Murphy tried to swallow. I’ve got Lewis checking to see if he can find open bank accounts under his name.”

“Gotcha,” Carver said. We all pushed away from the table and hurried out to the car.

“You think she’ll be there at this time of day?” I asked Jack.

The cruiser kicked up gravel and mud as we sped out of the driveway and made our way down Heresy Road. He barely slowed as he turned onto Queen Mary, and I jerked against the seatbelt as he straightened the wheel.

“Reverend Thomas said Mondays are her day off since the weekends are so busy with church activities. I guess we’ll find out.”

“I can’t push a warrant through with what we have,” Carver said. “It’s all conjecture. We don’t even have circumstantial evidence that her barn is where they killed Daniel Oglesby, or anything but suspicion that she’s somehow involved. The tie-in to her grandfather and the white Cadillac might be enough if we find the right judge, but you’ll have to get her to agree to let you look around the property on your own if I can’t work a miracle here.”

Carver got on the phone, and put a finger in his ear so he could hear the other end of the conversation.

“She could be innocent,” I said.

“We’ll find that out too,” Jack said. He didn’t have the sirens going. That would slow traffic down more than anything in this town because people couldn’t help but stop to look, but he didn’t exactly follow traffic laws as we weaved through the city limits.

“I want Martinez and Lewis to stick to William Vance like glue,” Jack said, hitting speed dial on his phone. “I don’t have enough goddamned men to cover everyone. I’m going to have to pull a deputy working the fire to stake out Wormy Mueller. And I’m going to put Colburn on the senior Doctor Vance to make sure he’s under lock and key. If the Aryan Nation
is
involved, then you damn well better believe he knows what’s going on.”

“You think his spiel about the Blood Brothers was just to throw you off?” I asked.

“Everything he told us in that interview was meant to throw us off. That was the whole point of him volunteering to come in. He gave us just enough of several different threads to check out to keep us off the real trail.”

“It all goes back to the Aryan Nation, like we originally thought,” I said.

“Yeah, but they get their funding from somewhere. Why shouldn’t they be running drugs to fill the coffers?” He looked in his rearview mirror at Carver just as he hung up the phone. “I need that membership roster. I need financials on the organization. How much closer are we on the warrant?”